


The Best Laid Plans

by alemara



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:36:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alemara/pseuds/alemara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 2010 I Need My Fics exchange. Sokka/Toph, some Jet/Zuko if you squint.</p>
<p>
  <i>Not that rogue Fire Nation factions makes sense, even on this increasingly strange morning, but Sokka likes to keep his world as neat and tidy as possible, even if that means projecting some semblance of reason onto the criminally ludicrous.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Laid Plans

The explosion, muffled as it is by distance and thick palace walls, wakes him into a confused cold sweat, sheets tangled around his legs and chest heaving. For a hazy moment, the world is half the dream he'd woken from and half startled voices rising through the thick dark; a hand is on his shoulder and for a half a second he thinks, how did you get here before the features of his assistant Azal organize themselves in his vision. Darkness and fear give the familiar face a strange, half-human quality, as if it had been taken apart and put back together inexpertly, but the hand still on his shoulder is solid and insistent.

"Sir--your Majesty--Fire Lord Zuko! Wake up--there's been another attack--"

He beats the hand away, sitting up, and swings his legs to the edge of the bed. Cool air prickles his skin, waking him as thoroughly as though he'd been drenched with cold water. He looks up, hands fisting in the sheets.

"The prison?"

Wordless, Azal nods. Zuko watches the man's throat move, the muscles working in and out, nervous. "Those idiots," he mutters and stands so suddenly that the other man is forced to step back and lose his balance or risk smacking into Zuko's broader frame; he shuffles backwards and sways for a second, trying to regain balance as his Fire Lord sweeps by, shaking off his nightshirt as he goes. Ahead, two servants have already pulled open the heavy dark doors of his closet; a third scuttles out holding clothes, which he presents with a low bow.

"Azal," calls Zuko, slipping the tunic over his shoulders, batting away hands that attempt to help him tie the sash.

"My Lord."

"My swords and armor."

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Azal exchange a glance with the man attemting to dress him. It's infuriating; he turns on them with narrowed eyes. "Well?"

By the bed, Azal hesitates, and when he speaks, it is with carefully measured words. "My Lord, these are mere insurgents, not worth your direct attention. General Zalon is at the scene already, why not allow the Firebenders to neutralize the situation...?"

Zuko rounds on him, half-fixed tunic flapping at his waist. Three steps bring him so close to his assistant that they nearly bump noses; the other man is taller but Zuko can feel him shaking through the floorboards. He almost sighs: the boy means well but he is too easily intimidated to be any real help. "Get my arrmor," he suggests, in a tone which adds and perhaps I’ll let you live.

Azal swallows, audibly. "Right away, Lord." He turns smoothly on his heel, gesturing for one of the other servants to follow, and goes through the door at a quick jog.

Outside, the air is warm and humid, half-lit with the strange glow of a huge orange moon that sits heavy upon the mountain edges, scattering jagged shadows of rock and tree over the mountainside. Halfway up the slope a flickering red light illuminates the walls of the huge prison, casting deep shadows and confusing one group of running, tussling figures with another. Voices come echoing down the spur, and Zuko sighs. "Which is it?"

"We believe it is the Reborn," says General Zalon. He is a solid, stocky man with a thick black beard so dense his lower face can hardly be discerned. It is a source of pride and he has a very good routine regarding the upkeep and care of it, which has the distinction of making Mai's mouth twitch into something that might well have been the shadow of a smile. Normally good-humored and nearly as rotund as Iroh, whose civilian status has allowed him to grow prosperously spherical, Zalon has been Zuko's right-hand man in the military for three years, but the customary smile is absent from his plump face as he stands alongside Zuko, gazing at the devastation. "The Phoenix Flight normally have a tad more subtlety to their attempts, but this is clearly the work of a group who could not care less who is injured or killed. I think it most likely we are dealing with a particularly vicious branch this morning, Fire Lord."

Zuko nods, arms crossed. He can feel the heavy, settling weight of his twin blades against his back; his hands itch to unsheath them and send them, fierce and glittering, through the fray. "And have they broken through?"

"My Lord!" Zalon is insulted. Just at this moment, Zuko could not care less. "They have not. The Guard Elite have the prison under complete control. They can blow up as many rocks as they like, but unless they brought along an Earthbender, they'll never break through. We have them out-numbered and out-classed. Your father is as safe from them as he is from accidental drowning."

For a long moment, Zuko watches the tiny figures as they run about in the flames; he can tell, now, the organized soldiers from the chaotic would-be assassins. It's all over in a few minutes, when the handful of insurgents left are surrounded by threatening Firebenders, and he gives a tight nod. "See that it's finished before dawn," he says, and Zalon bows as Zuko walks off, keeping his stride measured and his shoulders straight. It is more important than ever in these frenzied days to give the impression of impenetrability, of unquestionable strength and unworried calm, but _calm_ , as his uncle is all too willing to point out, has always been a problem for him. Even now he can feel his fingers clenching into fists, the desire to strike out at someone, anyone, fills his muscles with a restless longing. He is edgy and temperamental, prone to long, moody silences and sudden vicious bursts of temper; it is his exile all over again, the uncertainty, the guesses which must suffice as plans. He knows he is unpleasant to be around, but can't seem to stop himself; Mai is a help, but she can't be around all the time and on the few occasions when they do fight, it is all needling words and his own blustering, towering temper, and then she doesn't speak to him for days, and Uncle is too far away for anything other than a regular correspondence.

He thinks Uncle, who is far more shrewd than Zuko will ever like, knows precisely what Zuko hasn't been saying in his letters. His handwriting, so innocuous when he doublechecks it, seems to unravel and rewrite itself into some translation only Uncle understands, as if they have been writing in code all along without Zuko's conscious knowledge or permission, because Uncle has been suggesting slightly that his nephew seems somewhat down, a little more tense than usual, perhaps it might be better if he, Iroh, came to visit for a little while...?

_Don't concern yourself_ , Zuko, cursing himself, wrote in his last letter. _We aren't so devoid of ability we can't make our own tea here, Uncle_. So far Iroh's response--undoubtedly tactful, frustratingly compassionate--has not appeared.

It's been five years, and Zuko needs to be able to do this without Uncle, or how will he ever become a Fire Lord to be respected, who can help the Avatar reunite the world?

Black basalt cracks under his feet as he climbs, not back toward the palace, but to the Eyrie on the cliff opposite the prison where the messenger hawks are kept, heads tucked under their wings.

He considers writing to Aang, discards the idea. It is too much like asking Uncle, like admitting he lacks the ability or the power to fix his own problems. Writing to Katara is the same as writing to Aang, with the added annoyance of her _well-I-know-better_ attitude, her stifling caution and stinging reprimands. He doesn't think he could handle Katara, with her fists on her hips, braids swinging angrily, berating him for letting the situation get out of control.

Still, as he walks into the cool building, surrounded by the soft rustling of feathers and a few low calls, he feels he must write to someone, or risk slipping back into his younger, unbalanced self. At the desk which stands by the window, he pulls out a piece of paper and a quill, and sits, tapping the quilltip onto the desk where it leaves a mindless little cluster of dots, before it comes to him: the perfect recipient, someone who can help without taking over. It's so obvious he groans and clutches his forehead in exasperation, before putting pen to paper. The letter is short, perfunctory, a style which both he and the recipient can relate to, and as he wakes a hawk and slips the rolled paper into the case it carries, he can't help but feel a certain amount of relief. It’s a little hazy from lack of sleep and too many days of worry, but the knots in his stomach seem to have relaxed a little and his hands no longer fist of their own accord.

"Get going," he mutters to the hawk, which flaps once, twice, and swoops out the window in a flutter of feathers and a backdraft that pushes his hair into his eyes.

* * *

Sokka is dreaming of Yue when the hawk alights on his windowsill, feathers ruffled against a freshening north wind. In his dream, her long hair floats about her face and her smile is as serene and beautiful as calm water. They are walking somewhere, over snow that doesn't melt beneath his feet, under a vast winter moon spilling cool silvery light. He reaches to lace his fingers with hers, feels a pale ribbon light and cool as a moonbeam twine around his wrist. Her eyes are wide and blue and heartbreakingly lovely; she is taller, more slender than in life, her eyes ages old in an ageless, perfect face.

When he wakes up to the sound of insistent knocking, a cracking of beak on stone, his first thought is that Iroh is going to love Yue, he's going to just love her, he's going to introduce her to everyone, and it's a discombobulating moment later that he remembers he's never going to introduce Yue to anyone ever again.

Well. He could try introducing people to the moon, but that seems sort of redundant, really.

At his window, the hawk cocks his head and blinks a beady eye at him. "Thanks," he manages, unwrapping his sheet from around his arm, shaking it off as if it were some sort of clinging animal. "How did you know I didn't want to sleep in today? Up with the sun! That was my entire plan. Thank goodness you showed up just in time to not let me sleep until noon." He rubs at one sleep-fuzzy eye with the heel of his hand, and tries to recall his dream, but it vanished silently without him even noticing, leaving the feather-light touch of forgotten memory tingling his mind.

The hawk, impervious, does nothing but curve its neck to groom a few wing feathers. "Fine," says Sokka, throwing up his hands. "I give up. Nobody wants to start things off slow, with a nice conversation, a little wake-me-up. Give me the stupid message, and I'll read it once I've had my tea and can understand printed letters again. Good enough?"

A shiny black eye flashes at him.

"I'll take that as a yes."

The paper is rolled and sealed with a thick blob of blood-red wax, and he runs the pad of his thumb over the imprint of three flames, eyebrows furrowing. "What does Zuko want?"

The hawk, who has no answers, does nothing but stretch its talons out and in again, as if longing to sink them into something fuzzy and still moving.

Thoughts of tea forgotten, he feels sharply, irrevocably awake, and runs his thumbnail under the seal; it snaps with the satisfying crack of thick wax and pulls away from the paper, leaving an oily stain behind.

_Sokka_ , says the message, in Zuko's spiky handwriting.

_I could use some nonlinear thinking. Come to the palace as soon as you can, if the Earth King allows._

DON'T tell my uncle.

Zuko

"Nonlinear..." He stares at the writing a little longer, but it remains unyielding, and he glances back up at the hawk, now flexing its wings and edging towards the open window. "Hawk, I think your Fire Lord has lost it. Look.” He shakes the paper at the bird, who sidesteps casually, and begins to preen. "You can tell me the truth. Is this is the letter of a sad and deranged man? What am I supposed to do with this, huh?"

It's not like he hasn't been in touch with Zuko...in a way, everyone has. In fact, the new Fire Lord's every movement is documented by fervent towncriers with astounding levels of interest and accuracy. Zuko is the world's newest obsession, now that the Avatar has not only been found but has proved to be boringly normal. Zuko is a bright steady light in a world cast into confusion from the sudden end to a war no one had ever expected to end; he is a symbol of the possibilities which lay ahead...but Zuko himself has proved to no one's surprise to be a somewhat disappointing correspondent. He writes regularly to no one but Iroh, and even these letters, perused with great curiosity by the old man and Sokka, lack even the semblance of interesting news, aside from an ever more urgent obsession with the whereabouts of his mother. Ozai, it seems, is a harder nut to crack than any of them had anticipated, and is holding with grim fervor onto this last, most essential piece of information. Wherever Ursa is, it is deep, and it is secret.

Aside from these outbursts of frustrated temper, Zuko's letters contain little, if any, news. Sokka thinks it more possible that Zuko, stubborn as an Earthbender, is restraining any hint that he might want advice.

"Well, he's busy," Sokka said most recently, as Iroh frowned at the paper. "Putting the world back together, taking palanquin rides, polishing his little flame crown...you know, he's Fire Lord now. He probably has people set aside to do things like writing letters for him."

"How could anyone be so lazy?" Iroh asked, in genuine surprise.

"You call it laziness, I say it's a dream well worth striving for," said Sokka, and they had both laughed it off.

But now...

"Don't tell Uncle. I mean, I mean, really." He slaps the letter with the back of one hand and lets it go from the other, watching it drift to the tabletop. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Iroh peers at him through the steam rising in smooth curls from the teacups sitting between them. "I think it means you weren't supposed to tell me."

Sokka shrugs. "As if you couldn't pick it out of my head anyway. We all know you're some crazy zen-wielding mind-reading guru. Personally, I always assumed the tea was the secret to your powers, which are both frightening and mystifying."

Iroh fails to looks anything but pleased, stroking his beard meditatively. "I had no idea you were so perceptive."

"Well, I'm not. I just fake it pretty well. But, come on! I could use a little of your parable-laden wisdom, so lay it on me."

The letter is on the table between them, its corners curling slightly from the steam that surrounds it. They both lean towards it, as if there might be some sort of code hidden in the blankness between the curt lines, but the letter remains innocuously, one might say frustratingly, simple. If there's a code, it's not one Sokka can break or even see. "Well, what do you think?" asks Iroh, philosophical as always, and Sokka eyes him.

"You know, sometimes I think your whole bearded wisdom image is a farce," he says, and Iroh looks hurt. "Do you ever give a straight answer? Or do you just ask questions until the other person gives up out of sheer irritation?"

"Even the straightest answer may not lead to the correct conclusion," Iroh says, and lifts his sleeve out of the way to pick up his tea and blow on it, serene.

"Right," says Sokka, dry, dragging out the syllable. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. "It's just--I mean, it can't be good, can it?"

Iroh's eyes have always been piercingly bright and frighteningly intelligent when one looks at them closely; now they rest on Sokka and he feels as transparent as glass beneath their gaze. There's a _clink_ as the teacup is set back down, and then Iroh folds his arms on the tabletop to lean closer.

"Have you heard of a group calling themselves the Phoenix Flight?" Sokka shakes his head. "Or perhaps Azulon Reborn?"

"What are they, cults?"

"Worse than that." Iroh sits back now and steeples his fingers together in front of his impressive belly, gazing at a point somewhere above Sokka's head. "They are offshoots of the old Fire Nation regime, outlaws who believe that the Fire Nation would be better off with my nephew deposed. Not everyone wanted the war to be over. At least not in the way it ended."

"Only a moron would want to continue that madness, winner or not." Sokka leans back so that his chair tilts onto two legs, hefts his boomerang idly and flips it gently through the air. It feels good in his hand, familiar, a normal thing in a world growing steadily more insane. "So you're saying they're trying to kill Zuko? I mean, I can understand that. No offense, but he’s not exactly the world's most endearing person."

"I agree," says Iroh. "But they aren't trying to kill my nephew. They--I should say, one group, is trying to kill my brother."

Sokka stops leaning; the chair legs come back to earth with a flat thud, which is not unlike what just happened to his stomach.

"I'm sorry," he says, slow. "You're gonna have to run that one by me again, so it makes sense this time, because last time I thought you said they were trying to kill Ozai."

"That's what I said." Iroh sighs. He looks hunched and old, and although Sokka has seen him stand against a legion of Fire Nation troops, he now looks like nothing more than an old man, well-fed but troubled. Sokka wonders what he must have been like when he was Crown Prince and warlord, besieging the great walls of Ba Sing Se for six hundred days. No one but Iroh had ever broken through the wall, no one but Iroh ever came even close, and yet Sokka watches him as each day he serves tea to the people he had once attempted to conquer, talks to them, laughs with them. There's a mystery to Iroh that he can't quite grasp, some enigma that makes up the past and the benign present, something which adds the magnificent belly and the iron will and comes up with a whole greater than any of his visible qualities. He must have been a truly fearsome commander, the nightmare of all who feared and hated the Fire Nation.

"How does that make any sense?" Not that rogue Fire Nation factions makes sense, even on this increasingly strange morning, but Sokka likes to keep his world as neat and tidy as possible, even if that means projecting some semblance of reason onto the criminally ludicrous.

"There are still some misguided enough to wish to take over the rest of the world by force." Iroh sounds almost sympathetic, and Sokka looks at him sharply. "The Phoenix Flight do not believe my brother lost his ability to Firebend. They wish to reinstate him to the throne. The Azulon Reborn believe that Azula, not Zuko, deserves to be Fire Lord, that she defeated her brother in their Agni Kai and that his victory was due to Katara's meddling. They attempt to get to my brother because they foolishly believe he stands between Azula and the throne."

Sokka scratches his head with the tip of the boomerang, a habit comforting in its familiarity. "They know that's about eight different levels of crazy, right?"

"When looking for reason in the plots of a madman, you run the risk of being driven mad yourself." Iroh turns the paper around on the table and studies at it through narrowed eyes for a long moment, while Sokka wonders what he might read in the scrawling lines of his nephew's handwriting, if he can perceive something, some clue or desperate request invisible to all other eyes, but then he reaches forward and pushes the letter back across the tabletop with dainty fingertips. "You must not let my nephew know I saw this."

"Why?" Sokka feels only a resigned curiosity. It would have been far too good to be true for Iroh to take over, but he's already beginning to feel the familiar tightness in his belly that signals excitement. With a shock he realizes he has already plotted out the best and fastest road to the Fire Nation, already estimated the amount of food he'll need, how many waterbags he can take. Even the lack of Appa seems like a minor issue at best; he already believes traveling by himself will be a true test of his endurance and courage. It's the sort of thing his dad would do.

He finds he cannot wait to get started.

"You should go first to Omashu," Iroh is saying, as he returns, with a jolt, to the conversation. "I hear the Mechanist has received excellent employ with my old friend King Bumi. He may have something that will expedite your traveling, and you never know what you might need when you reach my nephew."

"I could sail," Sokka says, tossing out alternate options out of habit but already acquiescing to this better plan in his mind. It might take days to get to the Fire Nation in one of the small Water Tribe boats at the harbor closest to Ba Sing Se, and that was with prevailing winds. Across the table, Iroh beams at him with perfect composure and serene affection.

"You are not so different, you and my nephew," he muses. His hand lifts once again, begins the familiar action of stroking his beard. "You have the same desire for nobility and independence, the same reliance on intuition and courage. I believe you will make a formidable team."

"We have before," Sokka says. He thinks back to a few days years before, days filled with the stink of sulfur and his own pulse racing and thready with adrenaline. He and Zuko--and Suki, but that comes with a pang that isn't totally healed, even now--made a good team. A great team, even. He stands, pushing his chair back, and bows to Iroh in a way he hasn't since the end of the war, his right hand fisting in front of his chest. "If I'm going to leave by this afternoon, I'll have to go make my apologies to the Earth King now. Thank you, Iroh."

"Don't thank me yet," says Iroh. His gaze rests on the young man in front of him, and Sokka, head bowed, cannot see that his eyes are troubled. "I don't know what will happen when you reach my nephew. It would be unwise to assume that these outlaws can be swayed by anything other than force. Power is all they understand." Sokka reminds him of a loping wolf, all rangy grace and compact strength. Five years gone have turned the teenager into a man, but the change in Sokka is more subtle than the brown hair which has been allowed to grow and which now brushes his shoulders, or the strong arms which used to be so wiry, or the necklace of wolf's teeth which lies against his chest. There is a straightness to his stance which he had lacked those years ago; a calm clarity in his eyes, which never burn but remain cloudless blue even in the heat of battle. It's hard to say, because what's changed in Sokka is too inevitable and too quietly powerful to pinpoint. He was a boy; now he is a man, thinks Iroh, not without some sadness. Twenty-one is still too young an age to have seen all that Sokka has seen, but Iroh, as well as he understands and loves the world, cannot control it or how it moves. And yet, in the man before him, he sees much evidence of the boy he had first met; the boomerang strapped to his back is only one of the familiar tokens. No, he is not so different from Zuko, after all. He lacks Zuko's mercurial temper and Zuko's fierce pride for motivation, but his mind is quicker than any who heard only his jokes would ever guess, and his skills on the battlefield have been tempered and honed by five long years. He hopes that the combination is enough. "Go to Bumi," he says again. "There you may find the help you will need."

Sokka nods, a quick, curt movement, and strides out the door without further conversation. Iroh takes a moment to wonder what will have changed in Sokka the next time they meet. He shakes his head, slow, and reaches for the teapot to refresh his cup.

* * *

It takes less than an hour to pack his few personal possessions and the rations which arrive from the palace; by the time the sun is high in the sky and his shadow is nothing but a squat charcoal puddle at his feet, he stands at the door to the little house which has been his home for part of every year since the end of the war, and feels a pang of preemptive homesickness that he swallows as soon as it appears as a lump in his throat. After that, any thought of homesickness or other distractions disappear in his panic to keep hold of his mount, a young and enthusiastic wolfstag, whose great paws scuff up clods of dirt as they scrabble for purchase, who bolts out the gate and across the wide fields of the Earth Kingdom, whose reaching antlers branch like a tree before him. It runs with a strange, speedy rolling motion, a long lope that covers ground at an insane pace. He lowers himself over its long neck, the scent of fur and warm animal filling his nose, the rough brown fur rippling back against his cheek. All that afternoon they race the sun in its lowering arc; the wolfstag leaps small creeks and interrupting logs with a lightness that feels strange after riding its pelting gait, and by the time the sun dips low enough to flood flame-colored light over the far-off horizon, they've come so far he can no longer make out the walls of Ba Sing Se behind them.

That night he sleeps pillowed against the warm side of the wolfstag, letting the calm movement of its breath and the calm swing of the stars above lull him into a misty relaxation. He waits until the moon climbs high enough to be seen over the tattered ridge of pine trees, waxing and pearl-colored, and smiles at the face that he sees there, his eyes sliding shut just as he thinks the moon smiles back.

So pass the days of travel -- from dawn until the sun sinks, some days a little longer, rise again at dawn, keep moving. What had taken them days and weeks of worry five years before is now the easiest thing in the world to accomplish, and everyone he meets is more than willing -- delighted, even -- to lend a hand. In five years, the world has changed so much as to be nearly unrecognizable in places: Fire Nation technology, once so jealously guarded and poorly used, is everywhere, from clunky machines tilling the fields along with the patiently toiling ostrichhorses and hippoxen to sleek, speedy ships on the distant glimmering sea. In the villages, red is as prevalent as green, and Fire Nation colonists of five years before send their children to school with the Earth Kingdom children they'd originally replaced. Aang's face is everywhere, grinning at him from carefully bound books of paper, handpainted on posters, modeled on tiny wooden and clay versions of the Avatar who stand guard in store windows and at the doors of villagers.

It is all so strange to see. Was this what they had expected? He hadn't, at the time, thought about what the change in the world would be once Ozai was defeated and the war was over. Master Piandao would no doubt say something about the course of a pebble changing that of a river, but Sokka is just grateful for the victory they'd won, and for the lack of bloodshed it took to accomplish.

Three days after leaving Ba Sing Se, Omashu rises like a sugarloaf decorating a cake, its many slides and roads and levels making it look like some fantastic carving rather than a living city. "Finally," groans Sokka, letting his forehead knock gently against the back of the wolfstag's neck. The creature whines softly and twists its head around to look at him, a little haughty, as if Sokka has implied that it had had somehow lingered on the way. "Not you," he says, affirming. "You were great. Fantastic. Really a wonderful method of transportation, and fast! Please. Don't even talk to me about fast. But, no offense, Wolfenstein, I've missed having a bed these last few days. What do you say, huh? Bed and dinner with the mad king for me, a nice stable and some hay or a steak for you?"

The animal snuffs and tosses its head, the great antlers catching the last failing light of the day and sparking it back into the sky, and Sokka sits up, pats its neck. "Steak it is," he says. "Extra bloody. Alright, yah, Wolfgang! let's go!"

They enter Omahsu at a gallop, and, to their credit, only a few people startle enough to yell as they come charging over the bridge and through the gate. No sooner are the past the outer wall than a man with the livery of Omashu's stables comes running up to grab the reins as Sokka swings off, wincing and testing his sore muscles.

"Good," Sokka says, and waves a hand at the panting wolfstag, eyeing a few nervous, bleating pigsheep hungrily. "Steak, for that one. Uh...palace?"

"King Bumi is expecting you," says the stableman, impeccably polite and giving a sharp tug on the reins as the wolfstag tries to edge towards the panicked livestock.

"Right." Sokka looks up at the steep roads and levels, and sighs. "Well, I'd better get started."

Bumi, he remembers, has the weirdest sense of humor he's ever seen, and a serious infatuation with tests...which isn't to say that making him climb the slopes of Omashu is a test; knowing Bumi, the guy could just have forgotten. He's always felt a little flat-footed around Bumi, who gives off the impression of always knowing something Sokka doesn't. It's just a feeling, like a phantom itch between his shoulderblades, but he's never been able to relax around the guy. He's never felt so young and inexperienced and downright dumb as when he's in front of Bumi, who looks through him with those mad, strangely clear eyes. He's used to eyes with shading and depth, with layers upon layers, but Bumi's are unnervingly transparent, like water so clear its impossible to say how deep it might be. Iroh looks through him, but Bumi looks past him, and anyway he can forgive Iroh a lot, the guy is so friendly and well-meaning. Bumi's a little harder to warm up to.

Unless you're Aang, of course. He takes a moment to contemplate how easy it is to like everyone when you're Aang, and dismisses it as he does all the unfairness of the universe, with the practical conclusion that Aang is Aang and he's himself and it's not like everyone gets the same talents, right? It all evens out in the end.

And yet Bumi still unnerves him.

This is what he's contemplating when a pebble the size of a lime is kicked up into the air and bounces off his forehead, leaving a pale mark that immediately begins to darken even as he claps his hand to it, dazed. "Ow!" he says, somewhat unnecessarily. Just outside his range of vision he can see another rock bouncing up and down -- no, being tossed up and down. He turns, a little too quickly, and nearly goes down as he catches sight of a slim young woman with braided black hair, then does lose his balance as she whips the rock at his head, snake-fast, and he dips to avoid it. Standing, he glares at the girl, whose mouth is wide and laughing. It's a strange expression on a face as delicate as hers, but it's recognizable in a way the girl isn't. He looks at her with suspicion.

" _Toph?_ "

"Um, yeah." She grins, showing square little white teeth. Sokka wonders if he's ever noticed anyone's teeth before, ever, unless it was the teeth of a ravening animal trying to make him into lunch instead of vice versa, and doesn't think he has. But it's true. He just stares, flummoxed by unfortunate knowledge that he's been captivated not just by a smile, but by the perfect teeth of that smile. It is so utterly ridiculous that he wants to throw himself into a river and end it all now. The sickening thought rises in his mind that it's only going to get much, much worse, that he will, one day, long for the comparative sanity of only being distracted by perfect white teeth.

"I thought I was the blind one," she suggests, after a long pause, during which he notices that she's taller, but not by much, and her hair, which is so much longer than he'd ever noticed, has been braided into two plaits which hang down her back in what might be an imitation of Katara's normal style. It's sleek and black with shining blue highlights where the sun bounces off it, tied back behind that same old green and gold headband. Her eyes are wide and gray and her cheeks are pink from laughter and, he guesses, the effort of coming after him. She's all grown up. She's gorgeous. For a second, he's honestly afraid that he's managed to forget every word he's ever learned, but finally his mouth works and something comes out.

"Well, it's kind of hard to get a good look at someone pelting me with rocks," he says, and is relieved to hear the annoyance in his voice. After all, it's just Toph. He hasn't seen her in a while, and she looks different, but she's the same trouble-maker she ever was, still totally able and willing to kick his ass, with the same obstinate tilt to her chin, she’s just...taller. Older. Prettier.

He can feel his face flushing, and swallows, feeling an insane and all-encompassing gratitude for the first time ever that Toph is blind and therefore can't see this inexplicable breakdown he seems to be having. She frowns -- no pouter, Toph, but he finds the frown just as charming and realizes, not for the last time, that he is a doomed man -- at his comment, and puts a hand on her hip in a way he recognizes as the old stubborn stance. "Who else do you know who pelts you with rocks?" she demands. "Here I thought that was my calling card."

"You know, hanging out in the Earth Kingdom," he begins, weakly. "It happens. I guess I just have one of those faces, you know? People see it and they just want to throw rocks. Bam! You wouldn’t believe the bruises." He smacks a fist into his open palm and realizes his grin is beginning to hurt his cheeks. He’s grateful that there isn’t anything he could spot his reflection in, sure that it would be terrifying in the extreme.

Her frown deepens, but then she lifts her eyebrows in a flickering precise movement and huffs out a breath. He can almost see her making the decision not to let his insanity get to her as she waves an impatient, imperious hand. "Come on. You were taking too long." Dumbfounded, Sokka follows. He feels as if the rock that hit him has also knocked his sanity away, because he can't be reacting like this to Toph. Toph! She's like his sister. Like a more annoying version of his sister. She's knocked him down and dusted him up and made fun of him more times than he can count, and even now that he probably has about a hundred pounds on her, he's so sure she could take him nine falls out of ten that he'd bet all the money he has on her winning. In his mind, Toph has been twelve for the last five years -- even the last time he saw her, she was just fourteen, still just a kid. Finding her grown-up and more than fulfilling the potential of prettiness she'd had at twelve has caught him so flat-footed he wonders if he'll ever recover. Somewhere, he thinks he hears Katara laughing at him.

_Oh, Sokka_ , he thinks, in a well-known voice that is both sad and amused; a long-suffering, resigned voice, the voice of his conscience and his better sense. It, like the laugh, sounds unnervingly like Katara. _You've done it again._

* * *

Bumi is -- and Sokka is so grateful, so relieved for this he almost kisses the old king right there in the palace entryway -- entirely as Sokka remembers him: crafty, chortling in that odd honking way he has, and older than Sokka is able to imagine. He thinks even death itself might feel a little unsure around Bumi; it’s the only explanation he has for the man’s absurd vitality. He's a little more bent, a little more wrinkled, but those canny green eyes are as brilliant as ever.

"You're late," he remarks, in his strange, high-pitched, nasal voice. One piercing eye fixes Sokka as if it were a pin and he a bug. Wiggle away, he thinks. You'll never get out of this one. As always with Bumi, he's unsure if he's under examination or if there's just an interesting and mildly distracting stain on his shirt, or if Bumi just started thinking about what he might like for lunch. Aang swears up and down that the guy's a genius, and he's seen Bumi's incredible bending for himself, but it's still so hard to believe, with the mad king standing in front of him, snorting laughter fit to split at some joke only he'd heard. "You should have been on your way three days ago!"

This is, Sokka thinks, a little unfair. "Three days ago I'd only just left Ba Sing Se!" he says, defensive. He shouldn't be, it's just Bumi's bizarre way of stating the obvious, but he's on edge from travel and from the perception in Bumi's clear jade eye and from his unprecedented reaction to Toph. She's standing nearby, arms folded, so close he can smell the faint scent of earth and sweat and crushed grass coming from her. It knocks him off balance when he least expects it, leaving him frustrated, confused, and so bone-tired he thinks he could happily curl up right here on the floor and let sleep dismiss all his problems.

Well. Not all of them. He suspects that sleep would only compound this newest problem.

"Well?” Bumi raises an eyebrow, squinting his half-lidded eye even further, and Sokka fights an instinct to recoil. He looks like an ogre, or a snickering troll, some strange crumpled creature from a cave or a bedtime story. No wonder everyone obeys Bumi’s every word, though the range from the reasonable to the strange to the very weird to the brink of lunacy. It’s best to just let the words and looks roll off your back, he reminds himself. None of it is really Bumi, it’s all just an elaborate game he plays.

"Well?” says Sokka, taking the bait with resignation. They regard each other for the space of a heartbeat, then Bumi waves a hand.

"Shouldn’t you be on your way?”

"Now?” He knows this is only part of the play, just another act to perform, but his stomach is rumbling and he’s exhausted and uncertain of his next steps. Of course, he could go on Wolfie, but Iroh had been so sure that Bumi would have some other mode of transportation. "Aren’t you going to at least feed me first?”

"Feed you?” It isn’t cruel, simply surprised. Bumi looks to Toph, standing sniggering to one side. "Didn’t we already?”

"Nope,” she says, with perfect composure. "We haven’t done anything yet.” Sokka wonders if this sort of back and forth is usual between them, if this whole scene is just an elaborate bit of teasing between Toph and Bumi, and manages to feel not just left out but actually jealous, as if he had no idea what a relationship between master and student was like. Didn’t he and Piandao have the same relationship? Like that of an uncle and a beloved nephew? Didn’t they tease each other? Joke with each other?

No. _Sokke_ jokes. Master Piandao, enjoyable as he is, with the depth of affection he has for his student, has the sense of humor of a piece of shale. In this moment he isn’t sure who is the brunt of his jealousy: Bumi, for having Toph, or Toph for having Bumi.

And then he looks at Toph again, and she almost undoes his knees by brushing some loose hair out of her eyes and thinks, oh, yeah. Definitely Bumi.

And then, again, _I am so doomed_. It shouldn’t be possible; it certainly isn’t fair, but Toph has blindsided him by being the prettiest girl he’s ever seen and he has never been one to take much time when falling in love.

Aang will kill him. No, Aang will laugh. _Katara_ will kill him.

And that’s assuming Toph doesn’t kill him first.

_Doomed_ , he thinks, watching her. Utterly doomed.

"Oh,” says Bumi, with the innocence of a child. "So you’re not leaving?”

"Not yet,” says Toph, and snickers.

"In that case,” Bumi tells her. "We ought to have something to eat, don’t you think.”

"Please,” begs Sokka. "Food. Yes. Plenty of it.”

Bumi turns one wide eye and one squinting one back towards him, regards him. "Who are you?” he asks. As Sokka sputters, his last vestiges of patience gone with the grumbling of his stomach, the old man cackles and reaches out one long, spidery hand to draw him close. He smells like old man. Sokka sniffs. "Just kidding!” he says, with such good humor that Sokka thinks, darkly, it’s sort of a shame to have to kill him.

* * *

When Zuko returns to his bedroom, eyes burning with exhaustion, there’s a thick arrow stuck two inches deep into the blackwood of his bedpost, pinning a piece of paper that flutters in the gentle breeze from his open window. He scrutinizes it for a long moment, wondering when it was shot into his room, but the bolt gives no answers, having stopped quivering over an hour earlier.

It takes a quick burst of effort, even for him, to pull it out of the wood, and he weighs it experimentally before letting it roll from his palm to the untouched bedspread. The paper floats to the floor and he looks around before squatting to take it up.

The message on it is short and to the point; he would admire the writer’s brevity if he had any idea who might have authored it. _We can help_ , says the writing, in thick blocky lettering. _Come to the northwest edge of town after moonrise. Come alone. ___

He waits for his body’s alarm, so finely tuned and so dependable, to ring its warning, but feels nothing aside from curiosity. It could be his fatigue, certainly his reflexes and judgment are likely impaired due to the lack of sleep these last few night. He scans himself with his mind’s eye, gauges knots of tension, stiffness in fingers and knees, but finds nothing to suggest he needs anything other than a nap.

And there’s something about that handwriting...he lifts the paper to his nose, sniffs it as he’s seen Iroh do, but can discern nothing other than campfire smoke, the charcoal with which it was written, and the dry smell of paper. The arrow likewise rings some bell at the edge of his mind, familiar in the way an unrecognized tune might be before it is remembered as a lullaby he’d known as a child. The shaft is thick and black, fully eighteen inches long. He has a sharp mental image of a bowstring pulled back near to snapping point, this lethal bolt notched back against it, but can’t make out the face behind.

Well, he thinks, as he stretches out on his bed, arms behind his head, eyes on the hanging canopy above, you have to admit it makes for an efficient message system.

It’s his last complete thought before he sinks into sleep and turns his mind over to dim dreams.

It’s alarmingly easy for him to sneak out of the palace after the white disc of the moon has lifted over the volcano’s edge. In the hallways he becomes just another shadow, and though there is no mask on his face he feels like the Blue Spirit: silent, deadly, and with allegiance to none, the weight of his twin dao blades is reassuring against his back. In the darkness there’s an acuteness to his senses he rarely feels any longer, a heightened sense of touch and hearing that must be, he thinks, something like how Toph Bei Fong routinely sees the world. When he slips outside as soundless as a breath of wind, the air feels charged and refreshingly cool as the great white summer moon washes the courtyard with light. He can smell salt on the air, and sulfur from the sleeping volcano, all familiar, the smells of home. Water trickles into a fountain nearby and a few turtleducks twitch their feathers as they sleep, curled with their heads under their wings, underneath a nearby tree. Everything is peaceful and still, but he finds himself wondering how long it will all last.

When the hall guards pass each other in the courtyard, neither of them sees the slender black shadow that slips over the top of the wall and drops, noiseless, to the other side. He keeps to the shadows and the rooftops when needed, and everything goes exactly as he’d envisioned, until he reaches the northwest corner of town.

What happens there is nothing he’d anticipated at all.

He’s alone for a brief time, long enough to contemplate this area of his childhood, this part of town he only rarely sees and which is hidden behind crowds of people and palanquin hangings when he does. The town is so silent without the usual cheers, the babble of folk going about their day, the songs and laughter. Nearby, warm yellow light pours from one window of a house, illuminating a lengthened rectangle on the ground. A few steps closer are all he needs to hear the quiet murmur of a man’s voice, a woman’s soft laughter, the sweetness of her voice as she hums what sounds like a lullaby.

He’s struck by the life he’s imagining inside the house and his guard is down when the two figures creep up beside him; a huge hand claps over his mouth and he looks in time to see a sausage-like finger raised to a pair of lips.

He nods, fighting the urge to bite and flare, and the hand releases him. The two arrivals wear heavy black cloaks that disguise their faces and bodies: one is massive, a mountain of muscle with shoulders that resemble hunched, weather-worn mountains. The other, lithe and slender, is already pacing away, quiet as a cat and just as precise and limber. He watches as this other companion melts into the shadows with as little effort as a moth, then feels an irrevocable pressure on his shoulder. The giant is pushing him along; more out of a sense of dignity than anything else, he moves forward with them, biting inside.

Even this isn’t beyond the realm of possibility; he was certain after receiving the note something similar would occur. He knew he would be met, he knew the meeting would be secretive -- that, at least, was obvious from the wording of the note. He was just as confident that of those who met him -- there would be at least two -- neither would be the same individual who penned the letter which brought him down into the sleeping town in the dead of night.

He anticipated the short walk outside of the city, the dimly shimmering firepit. He suspected there would be more than just the letter-writer and his escorts, and he was right. There’s just enough time for him to feel smug at his read of the situation and pat himself on the back for his perception when one of the figures unfolds into long legs and stands, a lanky silhouette in moonlight and firelight. Next to him, his two companions are shaking off their cloaks and regaining human features, recognizable body parts, but he is frozen in indistinct shock and rage.

"You!” The word grinds out and shatters on the ground like an icicle; at his sides, his hands fist so fiercely he knows there will be bloody half-moons on his palms.

A few feet away, Jet laughs, and that stupid blade of grass he’s always chewing on bounces up and down in sympathetic merriment. Zuko steps forward, coiled and seething. Confusion is something he hates. He’s always lacked Azula’s precision, her attachment to certainty, but this is beyond surprise, beyond astonishment. He feels shell-shocked, and for a moment can’t hear past the ringing in his ears.

"You’re dead!”

"Obviously not.” Jet -- it is Jet, who else could it be? -- sketches a little bow, and manages to be both condescending and graceful. Zuko can feel his teeth grinding, sending little vibrations shooting through his jaw and into his skull. Jet, who he befriended, Jet who attacked him, attacked Uncle, Jet who was brainwashed. Jet who died.

Jet, who is smirking in an excessively annoying way, Jet to whom he has unwittingly given the high ground by showing his shock. He pulls himself up and sets his shoulders back, a posture drilled into him by dozens of teachers, by his father’s insistence. _Stand up, Zuko!_ his father would admonish. _No one will ever look on you as anything other than weak if you cannot even stand straight._

* * *

"Tell me again why you're coming along?"

They've been up in the air for almost a day, and Sokka has to admit that the Mechanist really knew his stuff this time around. The balloon is similar to the one he and Zuko had taken to the Boiling Rock, though the gondola is light and the propeller stronger, thanks, he was unsurprised to learn, to Toph and her metalbending. The great green and gold balloon curves above him like a moon made out of silk.

"Because I can compress the fuel so it burns more efficiently," Toph replies, from her spot by the bow. The wind streaming over the railing blows her bangs out and she tosses them out of her face in a way Sokka finds frustratingly distracting. "Because you guys could use an Earthbender. Because I was bored. Because I'm such an amusing and charming companion and we so rarely get any quality time anymore. Pick one, I got others."

She leans back and lets her arms lay along the metal railing, gazing sightlessly up at the clouds they are whipping underneath, and Sokka has to admit, awkward as he feels stuck in this metal cabin with a newly grown-up, newly (to him) attractive Toph, he feels the expansive wind of adventure taking things into its own control, pushing him along with a sparking hand between his shoulderblades, and it feels right that Toph should be in on the fun. After all, she'd helped bring about the end of the war, and he's not going to tell anyone to stay behind, especially not when they could probably take care of the problem all by themselves while he and Zuko go fishing, or something.

It's just that the gondola of the balloon is so small, it seems like he's always bumping into her or turning around to find that she'd walked up behind him with her freakish catlike silence. He remembers how effortlessly she'd seen through liars they'd run into in the past, and thinks that, to Toph, the way his heart cuts sharply to the left, the way his stomach clenches when he sees her must be as clear as a blinking sign over his head.

CRUSHING, the sign would blink, in smug flashing letters. CRUSHING HARD. SOMEONE PUT THIS BOOB OUT OF HIS MISERY.

_That's unnecessary,_ he thinks.

THIS IS PATHETIC, shrieks the sign.

He thought her eyes had narrowed suspiciously a couple of times, but he'd expended a till-now unknown reservoir of willpower to control his rebellious innards, and it seems to have worked so far -- at least, she hasn't said anything and he doesn't plan on volunteering any information, not now, not until he can wrap his mind around the whole situation. And it's not all that unheard of, which is what he realizes after he gives himself a few minutes to think about it. Toph is grown up, she's a pretty girl, she's still one of his greatest friends -- there is nothing in that combination to suggest he shouldn't or wouldn't find her attractive. More than attractive, if he's honest with himself. He finds himself sneaking looks at her as though she could catch him in the act, wondering what her hair might feel like and whether or not she's ever been kissed.

Katara might kill him, he thinks, but it would definitely definitely be worth it.

What's more surprising to him is how easily they've fallen back into traveling together. Toph converts the fuel into hard little nuggets of charcoal which he then shovels into the efficient little stove, and so far they've had one meal during which she had him in stitches with stories of training with Bumi. Really, aside from the constant pangs of awkwardness he suffers, it's been nothing but pleasant: fun, even.

"Sokka."

"Huh?" He stirs from his reverie, and finds to his displeasure that his rear has fallen asleep (ass-sleep, he thinks, and cackles to himself), stands and stretches to get the blood flowing. "What?"

'You're freaking me out," she says. She's always moved with precision, and now she picks her steps along the metal floor of the gondola with rapid grace until she's facing him, fists pressing into her hips. "Stop being so quiet, will you? It's creepy, coming from you."

"I always thought people hated it when I talked all the time," he says, surprised and a little confused. "Katara put my head in a water mask one time. I thought I was going to drown."

Is that a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth? It's hard to tell -- unless she wants to be transparent, she's impossibly hard to read. "They do," she says. "Hate it. But it's weird when you aren't spouting your every little thought." She pauses, goes in for the kill. "I bet the water mask didn't even work."

He thinks about the bubbles floating from his mouth in muted indignant shouts, and laughs. "You're right."

"Obviously," she says. Her eyes are blank but they seem to watch him, and he feels the sudden insane urge to pin her against the railing and--

"Sokka!" She snaps her fingers in his face and he jerks back in alarm. "You're doing it again!"

"I'm just..." It isn't this hard to think, normally. What's he allowing to happen? He pushes the sweet little daydream to one side, and focuses on the task at hand. "...Trying to plan ahead."

"Ah," she says, and this time there is a smile, all the more delightful for its lack of sweetness. "The Revenge of the Son of Plan Master! Okay, go ahead." She sits on a little metal seat that hadn't been there a second ago and gestures for him to do the same, and he indulges in a fleeting, undisguised moment of admiration for her bending. There's an artistry to her metalwork now, detailing that hadn't been there before. The gondola has delicate iron designs weaving through the railings, and she had amused herself for the first hour or so of flight by creating various figureheads at the bow, all different and all beautiful and strange. She'd shown him how she can shoot flipper-like extensions out of the gondola's sides in the case of a windstorm, leveling them as though they were adrift in rough water. It's all so far from the crude but effective armor and metalbending she'd been capable of before that he has to wonder just how far her capability has ever been tapped.

Now she sits with her chin in her palm, feet bare on the cold metal, skirts tugged by wind as it rushes through the gondola's structure, and seems to watch him, her expression level but with an edge of impatience.

He's told her what he knows, what Iroh had known, and she'd agreed it was little enough to work with, but now, even with her smile glowing in front of him, he looks into his memories, sifting through the useless until he comes across and pulls out a map of the Fire Nation, the one he'd pondered and worried over and memorized every detail of.

"At least it's an island," he muses. "They've got to be pretty small, these groups. Zuko’s been whittling them down, as far as I can tell, so they’ve got to be at their dregs, and getting desperate. Maybe twenty or so each. How else could they hide?"

"They couldn't, not without an Earthbender. That island has caves, but for more than twenty you'd need more cover, or a way to extend the caves that already exist. Maybe a box canyon." She turns her face away, staring blankly out at the passing clouds. The little furrow that appears between her brows when she's thinking hard is in full evidence. He'd find it adorable if they weren't so busy concentrating. As it is, he notes it and tucks it away for future reference.

"They're only after Ozai," he says. "That 's what Iroh thinks. That's not their ultimate goal, but it's the first step."

"Maybe we should just let them have him," she grumbles. "That guy's been nothing but a useless jerk since he was born. Let him make someone happy for once in his miserable life."

"We can't do that!" He looks at her, aghast. "They want to kill him!"

"Only one group wants to kill him," she points out, with a tone that adds let's be reasonable. "He's got a fifty-fifty chance of ending up with the other bunch of nutcases."

"Who will then try to assassinate Zuko," Sokka says. "I don't know about you, but I really think we should try to avoid that scenario. I'm sure if Zuko wanted to be assassinated, he would have been more than able to make it happen on his own."

She snorts laughter and nods. "He's never had much trouble getting people to _not_ like him. But, seriously, if Ozai is the problem, couldn't we just get rid of him and deal with them while they're regrouping?"

He shakes his head. "That wouldn't work. Ozai's not the problem, he's just the catalyst. They think...they think..." There's something that Toph had said that's niggling at him, like a tickle in the back of his head.

_Just let them have him_ , she'd said. _Not without an Earthbender_ , she'd said.

"Toph!"

She blinks and rocks back, startled. "What?"

He's up and out of his seat in less than a heartbeat, gripping her shoulders, his whole face alight with beaming goodwill and joy. "That's it! You're a genius!"

"Well," she says, choosing her words carefully. "Yes. I'm a genius, and you're insane. Everything is exactly how it should be."

"I could kiss you," he says, and does. It's short, quick, a hard pressure of his mouth on hers and he pulls away again, pacing as rapidly as he can in the small space between the railing and the red-hot mouth of the stove, rubbing his chin. The thought came like a flash, eclipsing everything, and he never notices the way Toph, pale and shocked, reaches up to touch her mouth, neither does he see the fervid pink that flushes across her cheeks and all the way down her throat. Later, his mind will replay this half-second over and over again in leisurely retaliation, and he won't sleep for hours due to a potent mix of embarrassment, longing, and frustration, but for now the moment is gone and forgotten, and only Toph's blush, gone in a matter of seconds, lingers briefly to prove it ever existed at all. Turned away, he reaches his arms out to embrace the balloon, the sky, his good fortune, Toph’s fortuitous words.

_Oh yeah,_ he thinks, smug. _I still got it_.

"So," Toph says, behind him. "Are you going to tell me why I'm such a genius, or are you going to march right off the gondola? Just so I know if I should be getting ready to rescue you."

"Give him to them!" he says, happily. "We're going to give him to them."

"I thought you said that was a bad idea."

"It was a terrible idea," he agrees. "So we're just going to _pretend_ to give him to them."

Understanding chases over Toph's face and she grins, a wide and wicked expression. "Bait."

He holds out his hands to her, as if presenting a prize. "Someone get the little lady a medal."

"I like it." She nods, the smile dimming though her expression remains fierce and focused. "Take him out of the jail so we don't get bottle-necked in the halls..."

"Find an out-of-the way spot to make our stand," Sokka continues. He snaps his fingers, whirls to face her once again. "Remember? They couldn't hide without an Earthbender. We'll shut them away with one."

She lifts out of her seat and plants herself in the path of his manic pacing. He manages to stop before plowing into her and undoubtedly ending up on his rear, but it's a near thing. She's close enough to feel her breath on his cheek, close enough that he can see the individual transparent freckles that dot over her nose, and when she smiles again, it's slow and nearly languid. He can feel the adrenaline surging through muscles and veins, thinks how easy it would be to take her by the shoulders and pull her face up to his.

"So," she says, and the thin veneer of innocence in her tone can't hide the wickedness lurking beneath, "you were wondering why I came, again?"

* * *

_Sokka, I hope you learned a little something about not letting the plans get in the way of the journey._

That nomad said that, way back when, after they’d escaped the Cave of the Two Lovers, and Sokka had blown him off. Now, he wonders if perhaps the old coot hadn’t been on to something, after all. _We don’t need a map_ , he maintained. _We just need love_.

Love. It hasn’t worked out so well for him. Yue and Suki are both gone, loyal to their responsibilities and leaving him with a kiss, but still gone. He hasn’t experienced the sort of love the nomad meant, the kind that makes you to close your eyes and trust in the path ahead of you, or asks you to throw reason aside and allow yourself to be caught up in a heady, uncompromising wind, the sort of storm that blows all your plans away and you along with them. That’s something he’s never felt.

The air is cooler now that the sun is long set, and the balloon, the clouds, and the sea below are bathed in blue light, spilling from the edge of the waning summer moon. He’d written a short note to Zuko, advised him of their estimated arrival time, and now there is nothing to do but wait and watch the waves crinkle the ocean far below.

That isn’t strictly true -- he could sleep, but his mind, so focused earlier on the plan (it’s always the plan, the plan has never failed him before, he can trust the plan) has taken its revenge and has been replaying, for the last hour or so, the brief, triumphant kiss he’d given Toph. There had been nothing of romance in that moment, nothing of sweetness or desire, only an overcoming sense of rightness. He’d done it without thinking, and she hasn’t said a word about it since.

It’s not as though he hasn’t been thinking about kissing Toph: he has. It’s just that he’d thought there would be so much more to it. He’d imagined them on, perhaps, a balcony, with a glowing sunset lighting her hair and clarifying her skin. He would say something about her beauty rending his soul...or something equally poetic. He would touch her cheek, she would sigh and her eyes would fall half-lidded. He would bend down...

But it ends there, because that scenario would never work. Toph has never been a wilting flower, has never cared much for sunsets or poetry, and would probably laugh herself into a seizureif he tried to woo her with words or flowers.

So he sits in the cool rushing wind, trying not to think about the failure that was kissing Toph, and hardly trying to keep out more pleasant images of another chance, one where everyone involved would be paying attention and which wasn’t so...rushed. Or dry. Or--

"Can’t sleep, huh?”

He looks down, sees Toph, her hair unbraided and hanging loose to her waist. "You are, seriously, you’re like a cat,” he says, alarmed. "Don’t you make any noise anymore?”

"Not unless I feel like it,” she says. She takes a step forward and leans her belly against the railing, resting her arms on the top rail and turning her face into the fresh breeze. "You should get some rest.”

"Don’t tell me what to do,” he says, disturbed and defensive. "And anyway, I’m older than you!”

"So?” Her voice is incalculably cool, a solid bastion of reason in the face of what is suggested to be his highly difficult behavior.

"So...” He flounders, tripping after his train of thought and catching the final trails of it with his fingertips. "So I should be the one telling you to go to bed.”

"Oh, come off it, Sokka. You’ve never been able to tell me to do anything at all.”

For the first time, he notices her frown, the familiar furrow of her forehead. "Is...” He hesitates, then barrels onward. "Everything okay?”

For a second, she doesn’t answer, but when she does, her voice is as level as usual. He can only detect the slightest hint of uncertainty beneath the evenness of tone. "How about I ask you that?”

He looks down at her, surprised into silence, and she barrels on. He recognizes the stubborn set to her jaw, the way her blind eyes gaze far away, as though fixed on something he can’t see. "I can’t sleep with everything going on in your head,” she says, finally. "Your heartbeat is going all over the place, it’s driving me crazy. Do you want to talk about it, or what?”

He has to smile. What would be a kind offer from Katara becomes a challenge for Toph; she spits out the words as if they were something distasteful but necessary. She requests his confidences with the same defiance she uses to give him a tongue-lashing or a shiny new nickname. He opens his mouth, closes it again. It’s nice to sit in this quiet commiseration, too bad that he has to break it, but she’s right, of course. She has the right to know, and he, he has to tell. He’s compelled by something higher than sense and more instinctive than emotion: it’s a need, like breathing.

"You look really different,” he tells the clouds that flutter by, white wisps of cool vapor misting his face.

"Well.” She considers, and he wonders, then watches as she lifts an eyebrow and quirks a smile. "I’m taller.”

"For sure,” he agrees. It would be so easy to leave this here, to forget all about it until after the Fire Nation, after the plan has gone through, but he can’t. He won’t sleep until he does, and neither will she.

Somewhere, perhaps, a wind has begun to blow.

Still, he lingers, wishing he could think of something to say, when she beats him to it, and utters the last words he’d ever thought he would hear from her.

"What?” he says, bemused.

"I said, where’s Suki these days?” Her face is a little averted now, so that he can only see the line of her cheek, but he thinks he notes a slight tension in the fingers that rest so lightly on the iron railing they’d built.

"Oh.” It comes out flat, like a popped bubble. That still hurts, a little; an old ache like a long-mended wound. Maybe Suki wasn’t the love of his life, but she was sweet and pretty and tough, and he’d been head over heels for her, and she’d left. "She had her places to be and...I had mine.”

"Oh.” Her voice echoes his almost perfectly. "...Sorry.”

"It’s okay.” He leans back on his palms, looks up at the sparking stars. "It was a while ago.”

She hums an assent, her fingers drumming rapidly on the railing. He wonders how long it took her to build this gondola, and figures, probably about ten minutes. "How do I look different?” she asks, startling him again and reminding him how unwise it is to sink into reverie with her around.

"Oh,” he says, helplessly. "Well, you’re...older. Your hair is longer. It, uh...” He flounders, drowning.

"Am I pretty?”

It bursts out of her, and he reels in surprise, noting, for the first time, the panicked rate of her fingertapping, the whiteness of her knuckles where she holds the railing. "Uh,” he says, helpfully. His chest feels as though its on fire; he longs so fiercely to jump up and crush her to him that for one drunken second he thinks he _has_. "Yeah, Toph. You’re pretty.”

It’s not enough. He runs a shaking hand through his hair, and looks at his feet, out at the stars, above at the balloon. "Gorgeous. When did you get so gorgeous? Seriously, it’s making it really difficult to think.”

When she doesn’t reply, he barges on, taking courage from his barrage of words, relishing the relief the torrent brings. "If we get there and Zuko hates the plan, I’m completely blaming you, because honestly I’m all twisted up and you...you...” He points at her, accusingly. "You are really distracting! With your shiny hair and your cute little smiles and your ability to crush me flat in less than a nanosecond.” God, he loves a strong woman. For a fevered heartbeat, he think that together, they really would move the earth.

"You want to be crushed?” is her unbelieving reply, and he gapes at her.

"That’s your response? I pour my heart out to you and you ask if I want to be crushed and still the only thing I can think about is kissing you. Properly, this time.”

Now she turns. Finally, she turns, her face very white and her eyes very wide. "I kissed Suki once,” she whispers. He blinks.

"I thought she was you. I thought, I was drowning, and you said you were coming, and then I was rescued, and I kissed you on the cheek only it turned out to be Suki.”

"I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, and does.

This is better, so much better, the heat of her breath and the feel of her body pressed all up against him; she makes a little noise into his mouth and he swallows it. His arms wrap around her and her arms go up around his neck, they fit together like pieces of a puzzle. She tastes like grass and smells like sand and wildflowers. He kisses her until their lips are swollen, until he is drunk on her taste, her feel, the way his body thrums against hers like a magnet. It’s delicious.

When he pulls away, she makes a little annoyed noise, as though he’d once again told her to go to bed. "Don’t stop,” she says, and reaches up again, but he gently disentangles her arms from around his neck and steps away.

"I can’t,” he says, and she glares.

"Really? For someone who can’t, you were doing a pretty good job until just now.”

"No, I mean...” He has to look away, has to grip the cold iron of the railing, return to sanity from the fever that gripped him, so he does. He closes his eyes into the cold wind, lets it clear his mind. "It’s just not the right time. We have plans, we have a responsibility. Maybe after...”

"Or maybe now,” she says. "Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to let the plans go by the wayside.”

"I can’t think like that,” he tells her. "I can’t. It’ll never be just this one time. It’ll be a habit.”

"Some habit,” she says, and grins lasciviously. He makes a face at her, despite knowing she can't see it.

"That isn’t what I mean and you know it.”

"Yeah, I do.” She takes a breath, shakes her head. "Look, Sokka. I know you didn’t expect this. But I...like you. I always liked you. And I won’t let any stupid plans stand in my way.”

Marching up, she kisses him hard, then rips away and turns with decision to the back of the gondola. "I’m going to bed.” His heart beats once, hard, and she turns, chin-lifted, challenging. "Don't bother coming.” It’s such the opposite of a seductive murmur that he actually stops breathing for a second, thinking not of kisses but the warmth of skin and her pounding heart against his chest...

The image is disorienting in its intensity, and when it clears, Toph is, thankfully, gone.

_Right_ , thinks Sokka, when his shattered mind has cleared. It isn’t until the sun is peeking over the edge of the horizon that he gets any sleep at all. It doesn’t help that he can hear her laughing.

* * *

"Prince -- I'm sorry." His smile is immediate and disarming. "Fire Lord Zuko. Thanks for coming. You remember Smellerbee--" The girl next to him nods and Zuko jerks away in surprised recognition. "And Longshot," finishes Jet. Across the fire, the silent bowman tips up the edge of his hat with one finger, gives a solemn nod. Jet's arms lift in an expansive embrace as he turns slowly in a circle. "I don’t believe you know The Duke or Pipsqueak here, but let me assure you, they are both big fans."

Enough is enough, and Zuko, planted in a readied stance, has eyes only for Jet. Jet! It's impossible. "What are you doing here, Jet?"

The other man sighs, shakes his head, and Zuko suddenly feels like an abashed student. The feeling is intensely distasteful. "I can see this is going to take a little time to sink in."

Zuko can see the white flash of teeth as Jet smiles around the stalk of grass, watches as he jerks a thumb at the campfire. "Smellerbee, Pipsqueak, nice job. Take five while I take our fearless leader here for a little walk."

Smellerbee -- it really is the same girl, just taller and a little shaggier and curvy under the old armor she wears, gives Zuko a punch on the shoulder that leaves his arm stinging. "Good to see you again," she says, and stalks off, leaving him rubbing what will turn into a magnificent bruise. The giant called Pipsqueak pats him on the shoulder with a hand the size of a side of meat and almost breaks his collarbone. "Fire Lord," he says, and chuckles kindly, a sound like boulders rolling down a mountainside. He, too, makes his way to the fireside, where he casts a shadow that darkens most of the camp.

Zuko is still recovering from surprise and discomfort when another hand grips his arm, and he turns to see Jet standing next to him. Their eyes meet; Zuko holds his ground for a moment and then looks away, angry without knowing why, longing to lash out. "Come on," says Jet, and tugs gently before letting go to amble off into the treeline.

A minute later, Zuko follows. They walk for an indeterminate amount of time, long enough for the waning moon to catch on the branches of the trees and rise above them, before coming to a clearing. Jet walks to the middle, closes his eyes, tilts his face up so that the moonlight and cool night air washes over him. Zuko says nothing, and does not follow all the way into the clearing. He stands at the edge, arms folded, waiting. Inside, he burns ice cold and furious, helpless. How could he not have known Jet was alive? How could he have missed so many things? How can it be, that five years later, his father has still not told him the one thing he wants to know?

Jet, here, alive. It's just another piece of proof that his mother must be, too.

"Look, I'm sorry about the secrecy." Jet has turned back to face him. He looks much older than the last time they'd met: his face is lined and there are a number of scars that catch the moonlight. One, an old gash, runs across one cheek and into his hairline. Zuko wonders what weapon made that cut, and decides not to think about it. He's thinner, his movements a little slower than the bright rapid precision Zuko remembers. He spreads out his hands in his old charming, apologetic way. "Old habits die hard, I guess."

"What's it to me?" Zuko says, disdainful. "You don't owe me anything."

"That's not true, Zuko." Jet lifts one hand, lets it drop to his side. "I tried to turn you in, once."

"That was a long time ago."

"And you've forgotten?"

They stand facing each other, the one perfectly controlled, the other reaching out. Zuko wonders how long it'll be before his control dissolves in the face of his exhaustion, his curiosity. The anger has subsided, but he feels it throbbing, waiting for the one spark it will take to ignite once more. "No," he says, finally. "I don't care what you tried to do to me. But you tried to turn in my uncle, and I can't forgive that. He never did anything to you."

"He didn't," Jet agrees, quiet. "You didn't, either. But back then, you weren't you and he wasn't him...not to me. Do you see? Every Firebender was one of the Firebenders who took my village away from me. I didn't discriminate. I was drunk on revenge."

"Yeah, well, I know what you mean." He mutters it, still annoyed enough to be a nuisance. He doesn't want to be helpful, doesn't want to know that he and Jet are not so different, even though some part of him cries out to say yes, I know, that was me, but I changed, I did, I promise. Deep down, he still feel he has to make amends. Deep down, the shame still bites. "But that's what happened. Anyway, I thought you were dead. That kind of helped the healing process."

Jet makes a little _moue_ , quirks an eyebrow in the old sardonic way. "I can see how that would make it easier to deal with me."

"Everyone thought you were dead." It's almost accusatory, and he doesn't bother to keep the words from stinging. "Aang, Sokka. Katara. They saw you. Katara said you couldn't be fixed. That you'd never make it."

"Well." His smile has an odd, deprecating quality; it twists on his face like an expression of pain. "Never say die. I'll admit it took a long time." He turns away, now, running a hand over a nearby branch. There's a slight limp to his walk that Zuko hadn't noticed before, and the wiry strength he'd once had seems diminished. Jet, the charismatic, larger than life, laughing and wild; Jet who was crushed and is now still wounded. Crippled. Zuko thinks it's one of the saddest things he's ever seen.

"The important thing is," he continues, to the ground, to the clearing, to everywhere but to Zuko, "that I'm better now. Who knows if I'll ever be a hundred percent again, but nobody knows better than I do how possible it is to fight with only ten percent left. And I've got a lot more than ten."

Now he finally turns, looking Zuko levelly in the eye, and Zuko realizes one thing about Jet has not changed: he still has the power to hold him in thrall just by a look, by a word, by the sheer presence of his personality. Jet is not diminished after all; he may be crippled, but he isn't out of the fight. Now, he straightens his thin shoulders, lifts his head.

"We're here to help," he says. "I know what you're fighting, and you need our help."

"Oh, do I?" Zuko spits the words out. He doesn't understand his reaction to Jet's offer, Jet's existence, but anger is old and familiar and he takes shelter under its blanket, gratefully. "Are you sure? Last I looked, I had the entire Fire Nation to draw from. Who says I need you?"

Undeterred, Jet only looks at him with that damnable composure. Zuko wants to flare up, simply out of spite. "You're up against guerrilla forces, and no one knows guerrilla fighting better than we do."

'Why I should trust you?" Zuko desperately wants to pace, wants to get out of the line of sight of Jet's odd, intense gaze, wants to move, wants to fight. He's grasping at straws and knows it, but to work together is anathema. He shies away from the possibility as if it were a growling animal, showing its teeth. He doesn't understand this fervent wish to get away, and he refuses to analyze it, stares it in the eye without the slightest intention of recognition. Still, he hates obeying his more inferior instincts, and so he -- with an effort -- maintains self-control and a degree of suggestibility.

He thinks his teeth might crack into pieces from the pressure of his jaw. "For all I know, you're working with the Flight or the Reborn. Maybe you're still after Firebenders."

"Don't be an idiot," snaps Jet. It feels like a slap, and Zuko takes a reactive step back before holding his ground, burning with embarrassment and some strange delight at finally making Jet crack his calm, at finally pushing a genuine reaction from him. "You don't have to trust me, but let me help!"

Zuko opens his mouth to retort, before his vision is obscured by a rush of wings and a glitter of beak and talons. In his excitement, it takes a minute to recognize Sokka's messanger hawk, but the bird knows its way and lands gently on his shoulder, nibbling affectionately in his hair. He takes the message from its leg and unrolls it, studies it. His gaze moves from print to Jet and back again, considering.

Finally, he holds out the scrap of paper. "You want to help? Fine. Sokka will be here late tomorrow and this is his plan. You want to convince me you want to be in on this, tell me how we can make this work."

Jet glances over the writing, and his eyes widen. There's a fierce intelligence that clarifies his features, makes him handsome despite the scars and weariness. Zuko, seeing but not understanding, looks away, suddenly. When Jet passes the paper back, their fingers brush and he feels an uncomfortable jolt in his stomach, already miserable from this seemingly never-ending night of surprises. He watches as Jet looks down, then back up. "Well?" It's wary. The night is late and he can't take too many more pressures: already he feels thin enough to crack at the next pull.

Jet's eyes are dark and shaded; now they blaze with whatever inner fuel has kept him going since that horrible injury all those years ago, and Zuko, for the first time, considers what motivation could keep a man alive and moving forward instead of sinking into the darkness. Vengeance, surely. And yet it was the Dai Li who did this to Jet, not Zuko, and certainly not Sokka or Toph, who they would meet with soon. Pride, perhaps. He's known his share and more of days propelled by nothing more than the desire to prove himself. Forgiveness?

Perhaps.

For now, he watches Jet's eyes with their strange inner light, and rationalizes his inner ache as an empty stomach in a tired body.

"You got it," says Jet, and puts out his hand. Zuko takes it, feel how thin the long fingers are, how much strength is left in them, and shakes.

* * *

"It's a good plan," says Jet. They are gathered not around the campfire, but in one of the smaller meeting rooms scattered throughout the palace. Smellerbee and the other Freedom Fighters remain outside, scouting territory and keeping watch. Sokka leans against a pillar, arms folded, and Toph sits nearby, one palm on the floor, the other cupping her chin. There's something a little off about them that Zuko can't quite put his finger on, but Sokka is as idiotically genial as ever and Toph's bending has, if possible, only gotten more powerful, and he's not one to pry.

It's just a feeling, anyway.

For now, he sits at a table, watching as Jet outlines the specifics they had hashed out the night before. "We'll take Ozai to a to-be-determined point," he says, and draws a circle on a map of the out-lying woods and caves. "Probably to this narrowing, here. We'll say he's being transferred. The two groups will send their entire force to capture or kill him: naturally, it isn't going to be an option for them to hold back. Toph." He points to her and she waves a hand, indicating go on, or maybe I'm here or perhaps whatever...it's difficult to tell.

"Can you block the entrances to the canyon?"

"Is that it?" she asks, disappointed. Her face falls, but it's an odd thing...looking at Sokka, Zuko could swear the man looks satisfied.

"No," says Jet, and she perks up. "Afterwards, you'll go with Longshot and Smellerbee to wrap up any loose ends...in case they don't send all their men or a few get left behind. Sound good?"

She smacks a fist into her open palm and grins, widely. "Sounds good."

"Sokka." Jet's attention is on him now, and Sokka looks up. "You'll be with Zuko in the canyon. You'll be at the rear, making sure no-one tries to pull a fast one and climb up or out. After that, you're on Ozai duty. Get him out of there to a safe spot. Got it?"

"Rear guard, escape plan for the world's biggest jerk." Sokka nods. "Got it." He glances at Toph. "Think you could provide me with a little path up and out of the madness?"

"Can bison fly?" she says, haughty. "I could do that with my eyes closed." They both laugh, until Zuko, frustrated with the pace of the proceedings, stands up, bumping into the table and sending it skidding across the floor.

"Quit joking around!" he says, furious. "We don't have time for any of this nonsense. You both know what you're going to do, so do I, so does Jet. Enough talking!" Wheeling, he rounds on Jet. "Are we done here?"

In the silence that follows, he hears Sokka lever himself off the pillar and braces himself for the response; to his surprise, Sokka's voice is quiet. "We're not trying to make this less important than it is, Zuko," he says. "We all know what's at stake here, and it's not just your father's life. But you have to trust us. We can't just wing it, we need a plan."

"Sometime's it's better to wing it," Zuko mutters, but he is diminished. Sokka's right, after all. He's simply on edge and lashing out. It's an all too familiar, a combination of nerves and impotent frustration, a desire to be in the thick of the action and, barring that, to create some here and now. He feels sick and worried. "We have a plan. Let's do it."

He looks around, pins each of them with a look, gauging their reactions. Sokka, nodding. Toph blank and relaxed, but embodying a comfortable, impossibly deep well of power. It seems to spread out from her like a pooling shadow. He's seen it unleashed and wonders how she manages to stay so calm all the time. He himself is massively improved since the fateful Agni Kai with Azula, can change the face of a thing and obliterate the surface, but Toph can demolish its very roots, shatter it from the ground up. Not for the first time, he sends a thankful thought to whatever ancestors or spirits that are listening that she's on his side.

Now she's sitting, defiant but patient, waiting. The echo of her yell as he burned her feet five years ago rattles at the base of his skull; Toph was the first to trust him, even then. Before he deserved it, before he earned it. He doesn't understand how she did it, how she knew or guessed, but he'd been thankful then and his appreciation had only grown with his witnessing her talents. Now, years later, that confidence is surprisingly sweet. He's struck by how adult she is, but it isn't, he thinks ruefully, as if any of them were allowed to be children for very long.

Last, he turns to Jet. He expects no arguments here and gets none; they'd hammered this plan out late into the night. "We all know what we're supposed to do," he says, and is glad to hear that his voice sounds calm, even controlled. "We all know what's at stake. And it isn't just my life, or my father's. We've all seen how this kind of dissonance can grow into a war. We have to end it, now, before it takes hold."

Jet isn't nodding, but Zuko can feel a wave of support from him: it's in the way he pushes his shoulders back, the muscle that clenches in his jaw, the hesitation of the ever-present stalk of grass he chews. He's suddenly, tiredly grateful for Jet's wiry strength, his sardonic grin, the ease with which he wields his two swords.

"Let's get some rest," he says, turning back to Sokka and Toph. "The word's already gone out that my father will be moved tonight. I'll get you when it's time."

* * *

The day passes more quickly than Sokka would have believed possible, if he hadn't already experienced the strangeness of time prior to a battle more times than he can count. Zuko led him to a comfortable, airy room as different from his little house in Ba Sing Se as that was from his tent at the South Pole. The room is hung with thick gold and red fabric, but he's pleased to see the symbol of the Four Nations -- Aang's symbol -- carved into the headboard of the bed and around the windows. "I like what you've done with the place," he told Zuko. "Very warm. I see you went with the ever-popular fire theme."

It turns out Zuko still doesn't have much of a sense of humor.

Like his time traveling with Wolfgang, the hours are long individually and yet slide by with eccentric speed altogether. He gets little sleep, instead lying on the bed with his hands behind his head and thinking of Toph; Toph in the moonlight, Toph with her hair all undone, Toph tucked up against him, every curve and valley of her body pressed sweetly to his. Her mouth, her jokes, her laugh all infatuate him, he’s devotee of her graceful bending, ludicrously proud of her beauty and bearing. He's glad the strange adultness of her hasn't changed her humor or crudeness or manners: she's just as fierce and tough and belligerent as ever, though there's a new sense of assurance unlike the brashness of her younger self. It's as though she'd pulled up all the fortitude disguised as obstinancy and bared it to the light, honed it, made it a weapon instead of a shield.

He wonders if the same thing has happened to him.

And Jet! Katara is going to be thrilled...he thinks. Their history with Jet is too complicated to forget, but the guy tried to redeem himself at what seemed like his last moment, and to Sokka, that pays him back for all. It's...good to see him, Sokka decides, and leaves Jet for the more attractive thoughts of Toph, and starlight, and kisses given and returned.

It’s hard to resist when his thoughts wander into more murky waters, when he starts to think of Toph’s black hair let loose over bare skin; the warmth of it under his hands, their mouths pressed together, their breath rushing. He thinks of her calling his name and it nearly undoes him; spends long moments imagining how she must look, sleeping and peaceful.

Even caught in such delightful employment, however, he can't ignore the sun as it tracks across the sky, and a half-hour before he guesses Zuko will come for him, he is already up and dressed, carefully cleaning his sword. The boomerang and club lay beside him on the bedclothes, and as he wipes down the blade with the soft piece of leather he runs over the plan in his head. He'd expected Zuko to fight during the day, when his Firebending is strongest, but the other man shook his head.

"I'll be at a disadvantage, but so will they," he'd said. "That makes Toph the strongest bender there, and she's the one we really need to be on her game. If everything goes to plan, we might not even need to fight at all."

He'd thought that surprisingly optimistic of Zuko at the time, but he finds himself hoping its true. A glance at the window tells him it's time: he sheathes the sword and stands up just as Zuko's impatient footsteps sound up the hall. He takes one last glance up into the dusky sky, thinks I'll die before I let anything happen to her, and then the door swings open.

"It's time," says Zuko.

* * *

In the beginning, it goes exactly as planned.

Zalon, with whom Sokka had developed an immediate rapport, had left forty minutes earlier with Toph and a small band of Firebenders, each personally chosen by Zuko to escort his father along the long, mountainous road to the sea. At least two of the guards were strongly suspected of passing information to the Flight and the Reborn, and Zuko made sure they had plenty of time during the day to spend a few hours in the teahouses and bars in the town before being called back to the jail. Jet had taken his leave earlier in the afternoon while Sokka daydreamed of Toph and Zuko paced in his room. "Have to get the boys out there as early as possible," he'd said, chewing on that inevitable stem of grass. His eyes bored into Zuko, who met them levelly and hoped his uncertainty wouldn't show.

He'd paused by the door, one long hand on the jamb, looking back at Zuko with an unreadable expression. "That girl. The one with the knives. Did you marry her yet?"

There was no reason why this question -- one he heard all the time -- should sink so suddenly in Zuko's stomach, but it does. He feels the need to reach out for the bedpost, balance himself, and wills himself not to. "Not until I find my mother," he says, taking refuge in the stiffness of his tone. A pause. "She understands." Mostly. As a matter of fact, Mai is unbelievably understanding...but that does not make her patient.

"Right." They'd looked at each other for a moment longer, and just as Zuko thought he'd have to say something else, anything else to clear the air, Jet had turned, left with a swagger to his walk that belied the old hurt in his back and legs, and a final, airy wink.

Zuko found the attempt to sleep afterwards completely useless.

That left him and Sokka alone at the palace. He takes in the wolf's head armor and cloak -- he'd seen them long ago, hadn't he? A lifetime ago, when this friend was an enemy, when everyone was an enemy -- the gleaming sword, the piercing clarity to Sokka's gaze.

"You've grown up," he says, with some surprise. It aches, a little, to think of the children they'd once been, children who only wanted to do what was right, who ended up saving the world. It seems impossible.

Sokka glances at him, a quirk to his lips. "That's normally what happens after five years, Zuko. We grow up. I would suggest it'll even happen to you, someday."

Zuko blinks, then smiles. It feels rusty and slow coming to his mouth. "I can dream."

"Yeah." Sokka claps him on the shoulder. "Keep dreaming."

After that, they march quickly and in silence, keeping to their own thoughts and plans. Smellerbee had laid down a shortcut of a trail that they follow, and soon enough they see it, the little canyon where the road narrows and the fight will begin in earnest. The canyon walls gleam bare and uninviting in the half-light before moonrise. Sokka thinks he sees Toph's handiwork stamped into the rock already, and eyes a turn in the canyon wall that looks like it might be climbable for someone with agility and a desperate desire to leave the canyon floor. They have enough time to separate and reach their places and then there's the metallic rattle of boots and armor and a telltale dust cloud rising. Sokka notes the rustling of bushes and a few falling pebbles, and then the battle begins in earnest.

What he remembers afterward is the massive showing of Toph's earthbending, the groan of rock as it stretches to shut off either end of the canyon, the dismayed shouts of the traitorous guards and the surprise of the would-be attackers. Somewhere in the fray he knows she is planted solid as a boulder, opening a hand and destroying an entire side of the canyon so that the ambushing Phoenix Flight are tumbled down in a rockalanche and an explosion of dust, how the earth beneath the pounding feet of the Reborn turns to quagmire so they founder and fall. Everything is confusion, and then he sees a pillar of earth shoot up from the middle of the fray and Toph flipping off it to land on one of the newly created walls of rock. _Go on,_ he shouts in his head, laying about with his sword, registering bright flashes of blood in the gray cloud of battle. _Get out of here!_

After that, he loses sight of her and everything except the fight.

Images flicker by -- Longshot firing bolt after bolt into the mass of people, Zuko flaring white-hot with fire, wielding his twin dao blades as they flicker with blue and green witchfire. Pipsqueak rolling into the tangle of arms and legs and weapons like an avalanche, The Duke on his shoulders whacking away with a cloud almost his size. He sees Jet, all hints of pain and injury magically disappeared, whirling like a fiend, surrounded on all sides with Smellerbee at his back.

He thinks, there are too many. He thinks, At least Toph got away. And he fights, heedless of a dagger ripping at his arm, fire flaring at his feet.

He fights until he thinks he won't be able to stand any longer. At the beginning he'd looked for Ozai and for the escape route, but he'd been pinned by a group of the Phoenix Flight, fighting like trapped animals, and he'd lost the deposed Fire Lord amid the dust and blood and yells.

In reality, the battle takes no more than ten minutes, but in the confusion it seems like days before he reaches Zuko. "Where's Ozai?" he yells, and Zuko smiles, grimly. It's terrifying in his dirt-streaked face, but his voice, cracked from yelling and dust, sounds sane enough.

"Never here," he yells, and there's a distinct air of satisfaction audible even in this din. Sokka stares, then throws back his head and laughs.

"Nonlinear thinking," he shouts, and gives a thumbs up before they fall apart into the fray once more.

The next thing he knows, a handful of scared looking men have been dumped unceremoniously over the manufactured wall to land at Zuko's feet, and the whole thing is called to a halt. Ears ringing, he picks out Jet and the Freedom Fighters, sporting a few more cuts and nursing a few sprains or breaks. Sometime after the start of the fight, a sword had cut Longshot's bow in half and he pauses now with the two pieces fisted in his hands. There's the heart-lifting sight of Toph, with a ferocious grin, sliding back into the canyon with the two leaders of the Reborn and the Flight yelling with pain as she pulls them by the ears into the defeated group. They fall at Zuko's feet and he watches as they kowtow, wailing apologies and pleas for mercy. She stomps, and a large metal box comes flying over the makeshift wall to land none too gently close enough for her to reach out and rip off the door, revealing a shaky-looking Ozai, who clings to the edges of the box, blinking in the sunlight.

"Tell them," says Zuko. His voice is quiet but carries, full of unquestioned authority. His father's face twists in fury, and his eyes narrow, but Zuko turns to him, standing tall, eyes blazing.

"If you don't tell them," he says, quiet but level, "I'll throw you to them myself, and celebrate being rid of you. Are we clear?"

For a second, it seems as if Ozai will refuse, but then he casts his eyes away, bows his head. His voice, like his son's, is quiet, though his has the rusty uncertainty of long unuse.

"Give it up," he bites out, as though the words are bitter to the taste, as, Sokka supposes, they are. "Your Fire Lord stands before you. I...am no longer your ruler." His mouth twists and muscles work in his jaw, but Zuko gives him a look and he bows his head, trapped and hating it. "You owe your allegiance to Fire Lord Zuko."

A murmur goes up from the trapped insurgents. Ozai grimaces, and clenches his fists. "The war is over," he says.

"And so are you," says Sokka. A mass of eyes turn to him, but he hardly notices, so angry is he at the twisted man standing before him. "You've been over for years, Ozai. What did you promise these poor idiots? Money? Power? Positions in your court, once you're restored and your son is dead?"

Zuko takes a step forward, hand raised. "Sokka," he begins, but Sokka can't stop. His anger bubbles up and out of him, fed by his concern for Toph, his admiration for Zuko, the hope of the last five years marred by this reckless play for power. "They were never trying to kill you. That's just what you wanted Zuko to think! So he'd keep you around, protect you, hoping you'd tell him where his mother is. You were just playing him against these guys. The truth is you don't know, do you? She isn't where you put her. She escaped you years ago. Maybe you thought a rumor of your death would reach her and she'd come back, or maybe she's too ashamed to show her face...even to you, Zuko."

He doesn't see how Zuko goes pale, how Jet moves quietly to the back of the crowd, how Ozai turns red. All he can see are the pieces fitting together, forming a whole. "Well, it was a stupid move," he says, finally. "You made your last move and you blew it, because once again the only one you thought of was yourself. I'll bet you didn't tell these Reborn that Azula is so out of her mind she can't even spell her own name, that she talks to your dead father like he's in the room with her. I'll bet you didn't tell the Flight that you lost your ability to firebend."

The crowd gasps; he hears the intake of breath like a wind rushing by, and watches as Ozai turns from red to purple. "It's -- It's not true!" He’s sputtering, mad with fury and loss.

"Prove it." It's Toph. She steps forward and Ozai's handcuffs fall to the ground. He stares at them, then at her. "Go ahead," she says, invitingly. "I'm right here. You could get me in a second. Firebend. Show us just how much oomph you still have, old man."

Ozai's hesitation is fatal; the men kneeling in the dust begin to look at him in disgust. A few weep openly, in anger and betrayal. Zuko takes a long, deep breath, faces his father. "Is it true?"

Cornered as he is, Ozai still tries to loom away, maintain some semblance of power, but his son -- larger than him, now, not so tall but stronger -- takes him by the shoulders and shakes him roughly. "It's true," he mutters. "I don't know where she is."

Zuko drops him as though he were some wriggling insect, and turns to Zalon, ever faithful, who has remained at his Fire Lord's side since the conflict began. "Take them in," he says. "We'll deal with them later."

Sokka's last impressions of that canyon are of Toph destroying the walls she'd built, of Ozai being led away. He sees Jet and Zuko in quiet conversation while nearby Smellerbee comforts Longshot over the loss of his bow. He watches as Jet claps Zuko on the shoulder, how Zuko rests a hand on the other man's wrist, smiles wanly. He lifts a hand in a wave as the Freedom Fighters make their way along with the captured insurgents, Jet at their head, laughing and joking with fierce good humor, and wonders how the guy manages to keep that stem of grass in his mouth all the time. It should be impossible.

What he remembers best is a small hand slipping into his, and then Toph launching herself at him, clinging with strong arms around his neck, kissing him with such deep intensity he nearly falls backward before wrapping his arms around her and lifting her up off her feet in exuberant response. When they finally part and he allows her toes to touch the ground again, she smiles up at him and he bends down to kiss the corner of her mouth, her neck, her ear. Her giggles follow the path of his mouth.

"Guess what?” she says, enticing.

"What?” he replies, leaning down to kiss her throat.

"It’s after,” she comments, tipping her head back. "So much for your plan. I bet you’re terrible at Pai Sho.”

"You’d be right.”

"I'm pretty sure Zuko just fell over," she whispers, into his ear, and he grins in satisfaction, pulls her a little closer.

"Good," he says, and kisses her once more, for good measure. "He could use a rest."

They're forced to part after that, for celebrations and recapping and meetings with numerous important people, but after that, they're alone, and he doesn't let go again.  



End file.
